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Two hot topics for those of us who have an interest in elections — namely restrictive voter identification requirements and the curtailment of early voting — have generated a lot of debate and reporting that might suggest there is little hard evidence about their actual effect on voting behavior. In fact, there has been substantial research and testing that should allow us to analyze these trends without the hype.
Voter ID Laws
Supporters of more stringent voter identification laws claim that these requirements prevent voter fraud. Opponents argue that rigorous voter ID rules target racial and ethnic minorities, the poor and younger voters who are significantly less likely to have the required forms of identification, usually a drivers license or passport.
It appears that neither assertion is based in fact.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. To date there is no compelling evidence to demonstrate that voter identification requirements as currently practiced in the 50 states has a significant and consistent effect on suppressing voter participation. This holds true across ethnic, racial, gender and age sub-groups.
Early Voting
In-person early voting and other reforms (e.g., vote-by-mail) have been in operation for nearly two decades, so we can better evaluate their effect on voter turnout. In-person early voting, first adopted in Texas in 1989, allows voters to cast a ballot at any number of locations days or weeks before Election Day. Vote-by-mail allows voters to request or receive an unsolicited ballot in the mail, which they can return on or before Election Day by mail. The expectation of early voting was that it would result in greater voter participation, particularly among traditionally underrepresented voters (i.e., the young and racial and ethnic minorities). To date, the evidence to support this expectation has been scant and at best modest. Few researchers have found that any form of early voting — in-person or by mail — has had a significant or large effect on voter turnout.
So, why is there so much attention on voter identification and early voting? In the case of voter identification, the issue has become emblematic for the Republican Party and its supporters. The issue is not whether there is voter fraud or whether voter identification requirements reduce fraud; the issue is largely symbolic and framed as means of protecting the integrity of elections. Similarly, efforts to curtail early voting have originated with Republican legislators. Recent legislation has focused on curtailing the numbers of days of early voting, specifically early voting on the weekends before Election Day when African-American churches organize drives for their members, largely Democrats, to vote. Ironically, the evidence is that early voters are disproportionately older, Anglo and Republican.
That’s not to say that there aren’t ways to improve voter participation.
A new mode of voting — the Election Day Vote Center — allows voters on Election Day to vote at any number of locations, rather than just one polling place proximate to the voter’s residence. Like in-person early voting, Election Day vote centers provide voters with places at which to vote that are more convenient and central to where they work, shop, attend school and travel. First used in Colorado in 2003, vote centers have been adopted in several other states including Texas (i.e., Lubbock, Collin and recently Travis counties), New Mexico and Indiana. The evidence, albeit limited to a few jurisdictions, is that vote centers have a significant and positive effect on voter turnout; moreover, vote centers’ greatest effect is to increase turnout among infrequent voters.
The reason: With Election Day vote centers, each voting site is larger, with a greater number of voting machines, poll workers and parking spaces. There are fewer sites, but they are more centrally located to major population centers and proximate to major roadways, rather than distributed among many smaller residential locations. The result is a more efficient Election Day operation in which voters report shorter waiting times to vote, more effective assistance from poll workers and less difficulty finding the polling place location and parking.
Robert Stein, Ph.D., is the fellow in urban politics at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. He is also Rice University’s Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science and a nationally recognized political analyst and expert on elections.